Eugene Drucker in his short comment ‘The Emersons on playing Bach
Fugues’ in the booklet for this release, states that, “Bach’s
ideas in these fugues are so pure that they transcend the characteristics
of the instrument for which he wrote them.” This is arguable,
but is likely to become the essential point on which many listeners’
appreciation of this recording will hinge. Whether you are a fan
of the harpsichord or prefer this music played on a modern piano,
you will inevitably associate its textures, voicing and expressive
balance and weight with an instrument whose note is one of attack
and decay, and also one entirely without vibrato; that is unless
the occasional bebung of a clavichord is a familiar sound,
though one unlikely to be encountered often in music of this complexity.

In other words,
having these works played by string instruments fundamentally
alters its character. If you are familiar with this music on
whatever keyboard you will have to adjust and become used to
hearing much loved counterpoint in a new setting, and either
accept it as chamber music in its own right, or wonder why anyone
bothered when the original was perfectly wonderful in the first
place. There is an academic argument as to whether Bach’s fugues
for another sustaining instrument, the organ, differ sufficiently
from those of the Well Tempered Clavier to make that
character of the music “transcend the characteristics of the
instrument for which he wrote them”. I’m not going to enter
into this debate, beyond indicating it as just one reason for
imagining that recordings such as this will polarise opinion.
Divorcing these fugues from the technically problematic preludes
does tend to emphasise this aspect of such a programme, although
the playing on this recording takes this set of fugues far beyond
becoming a purely academic exercise. With the Emerson Quartet’s
previous Bach outing with their best-selling The Art of Fugue
this will have been less of a source of controversy. Bach’s
score for this work doesn’t indicate specific instrumentation,
and the music has been arranged for just about any instrumental
combination you can imagine, although there are some who will
always argue that the tradition is ever-present for performance
at the keyboard.

Another reason why
opinion may be divided on this recording is the style of performance.
The Emerson Quartet makes no concessions to current early music
performance practice trends, and their romantically expressive,
vibrato-laden sound may sound unbearably old-fashioned to some
ears. To a certain extent it reminded me of those old Ars Rediviva
recordings which, despite a certain sentimental attachment,
now fail to grab me in the same way as more recent Bach interpretations
by artists like Reinhard Goebel. The Emerson Quartet is not
a early music ensemble, and neither are these arrangements from
that period. Listening to these performances there is an argument
to be had as to whether, having chosen not to enter the realms
of early-music performance practice, there is a case for demanding
an even more adventurous trip down this alternative road. Again,
I am not criticising for this decision in what is after all
a set of arrangements with little enough performing tradition,
let alone having any place in that of being ‘historically informed’.
My concern is that the contrast between fugues is placed within
too narrow a framework. If we’re going romantic, or even modern,
then let’s see how far we can go – stretching lines, digging
deeper, to place these works in those realms which were freed
by the strangeness of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. Having
played the disc through a number of times there always seems
a point at which my brain switches off, and I only start noticing
the music properly when it has stopped. This is not because
the music or the performances are intrinsically dull, just that,
like a sentence with too many words such as this, everything
just somehow ends up sounding pretty much the same after a certain
amount of time, so that you stop paying attention to what is
being ....

Whatever the arguments
and complaints, there is a most certain validity to recording
arrangements of this nature, especially when signed off by names
like Mozart. Mozart immersed himself in the fugues of ‘the 48’
in 1782, applying himself to the manuscripts in Baron von Swieten’s
Viennese collection in the spring of that year, and subsequently
using the experience to enrich his own work. On its own terms
this is a very nice string quartet/quintet recording, placed
in the rich acoustic of the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
and to my mind given the correct balance between presence and
detail on the one hand, atmosphere on the other. The ‘slower’
fugues seem to work the best in this setting, with the undulating
richness of BWV 859 and BWV 869 creating their
own subtle beauty. The articulation of the livelier fugues is
also approached with its own accurate intensity, but as textures
thicken the Emersons are hoisted somewhat by their own collective
petard. The stated intention is “that separate instruments can
make it easier for listeners to hear the various voices”, but
is followed by “Since we all play the same thematic material,
we’ve had to try harder than ever to achieve similarity or unanimity
of style and approach.” Of course there needs to be unity and
consistency, but clarity surely comes through a greater hierarchy
of voices – those which lead, and those which are of lesser
importance at any given moment. Listen to something like BWV
877 and yes, you will hear each player entering with the
principal subject with greater emphasis, but the busy goings-on
elsewhere don’t really enhance the clarity. Also the more familiar
rhythmic bounce of the music is more clogged with those longer
notes, which in stringed instruments refuse to decay and ‘get
out of the way’. My point is more importantly that, with each
voice having the same or similar character, it is bringing us
back to that common denominator of lack of real contrast. Nice
stereo separation of the individual players is no substitute
for this. One of my all-time desert-island sets is Sviatoslav
Richter playing the entire Das Wolhtemperierte Klavier,
and, taking another fairly random dip with his BWV 878
one can hear each entry of the main subject as a kind of prayer
– sung each time by a different person. While not wanting to
be unkind, the Emerson players sound more like one of those
mirror portraits, four identical people saying as near enough
the same thing as makes little difference one from the other.

I could go on for
pages, but in the end you will have to make up your own mind,
and if you have the opportunity to have a listen before purchasing
I would strongly urge you so to do. In summing up, this is a
gorgeous sounding, beautifully performed and recorded disc,
and I wish I could muster more enthusiasm. I’m in no way against
Bach being played on whatever instrument makes him sound good,
so please don’t come away with the impression that I’m stuck
with my preconceptions of some ideal of piano or harpsichord
sound exclusively for this repertoire. The Emerson Quartet’s
Art of Fugue sold hugely, so no doubt Deutsche Grammophon
had incentive enough to see a follow-up release, and I wish
all concerned the best of luck. Damon Runyon would just say
it’s ‘easy on the ears’ and leave it at that, no further intellectual
posturing required. Time will tell if this becomes a best-seller,
but for me it will always be more of a supplement than a staple
of my Bach diet.

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